Friday, June 29, 2012

There is no joy today in Hollywood. The relationship the town thought would last forever.. or at least six years, is apparently ending. How could this not work? I mean, the man jumped up and down on Oprah's couch? What greater show of love has there ever been?

Get ready for an onslaught of TMZ/People/National Enquirer/ET/Gawker coverage of this monumental story. Let the speculation begin! Was Tom sleeping around? Is this because ROCK OF AGES bombed? Was their separation during his movie shoots too much for the marriage? Did Kelsey Grammer say something to Tom? Did Katie secretly influence Chief Justice Roberts' decision?

Now comes the custody battle, the statements from each sides publicists, the details of the pre-nup agreement, and the Barbara Walters specials.

I feel bad for their daughter, of course. TMZ's gain is Suri's loss. But brace yourself. This is just the beginning. Get ready for the NON-STORY OF THE YEAR.

50 comments:

you know... if it could bounce out some of the politics, i wouldn't mind.Glad to know Katie finally regained her mind, though. And that's the extent to which i care. I don't think i 've ever seen a thing she's been in. wonder if i've seen any of his.

Katie would have been five when Risky Business came out, so Tom Cruise would have been TOM CRUISE her whole conscious life. In other generations, if Cary Grant or Robert Redford had come on to particular young girls, I imagine they wouldn't have had a lot of defenses to them either. Reality isn't the same as seemingly fulfilled fantasy, though, apparently.

Well, when you're a "Legend", it's a "Risky Business" and it takes "All The Right Moves" so "Taps" won't sound for his "Endless Love". Now for Katie it's all gonna be about "The Color Of Money" and Tom hopes he won't be "Losin' It". After a few "Days Of Thunder", he probably hopes Katie will go "Far & Away". Now all he'll need is to have a "Cocktail" with "A Few Good Men" and he can join the rest of "The Outsiders" looking in at people with a successful marriage as long as he doesn't keep his "Eyes Wide Shut". But I think it may be an Impossible Mission for him.

YEKIMI said..."Well, when you're a "Legend", it's a "Risky Business" and it takes "All The Right Moves" so "Taps" won't sound for his "Endless Love". Now for Katie it's all gonna be about "The Color Of Money" and Tom hopes he won't be "Losin' It". After a few "Days Of Thunder", he probably hopes Katie will go "Far & Away". Now all he'll need is to have a "Cocktail" with "A Few Good Men" and he can join the rest of "The Outsiders" looking in at people with a successful marriage as long as he doesn't keep his "Eyes Wide Shut". But I think it may be an Impossible Mission for him."

Congratulations, YEKIMI. You can now take your own life without worry of upsetting anyone.

Huh! Well I heard from allegedly "connected" people that Holmes had signed a contract. One kid, five years, or something like that.

To be honest, I could totally believe that Tom is A-Sexual, and/or not particularly into relationships. Everyone who's ever worked with him thinks he's a great guy, but he seems to have the sexuality of Michael Jackson.

I can't wait to see what he's going to do to whoevers sofa he makes the announcement on.

And I guess we better start getting used to seeing photos of Katie Holmes looking utterly miserable.

And just as a refresher, here's the list of famous Scientologists again

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Scientologists

I don't care about silly things like "is he really gay or bi" or "Was there a contract?" or whatever. Every time I see someone in Scientology on a TV show talk, it reminds me of this crazy video with Tom Cruise in it, explaining the sh*t out of something made up buy a science-fiction writer in the late 60s.

The only excuse for all these people to me is that they got into it so they get jobs in Hollywood, like joining the local voluntary fire department or some other free mason club.

Cruise is the perfect poster child for these weirdos because he himself is one. I didn't envy Suri the moment she was born because her dad is crazy.

Found another "may have hooked up with childhood idol" moment: during the making of "Mogambo", Clark Gable hung out with Grace Kelly (who was in her early 20s) when they were filming in Africa. He completely ignored her when they got back to shoot in England because he was in the middle of a divorce in Britain and they still have the "king's proctor" rules that meant if someone seeking a divorce was found canoodling with someone else, neither party could get the divorce.

Look, I know the guy's got the whole Scientology thing and the maniacal smile that says "I've dug a few shallow graves," but I don't think it's debatable when I say he's a damn good actor who's made more good movies than bad.Regarding Scientology, it's weird and cultish, but you can say that about many belief systems/religions. I don't think that makes him a bad guy. If that's a measuring stick for integrity, 90% of the world's population is in the same boat. I have no investment in his personal life, so this really is a non-story.

All that being said, how awesome would it be to find out that he's secretly building a space ship, sleeps in a hyperbaric chamber to protect himself from alien telekinetics and claims to have alien corpses hidden in a storage unit in Nevada?

$cientology is way beyond "weird and cultish." I know, I was there. It has destroyed, killed, and bankrupted people. It has ruined family relationships and friendships. It is a money-mad grift posing as a religion.

I laughed my ass off when I read about the divorce of Katie and the Smirking Dwarf. I'm still laughing. I will continue to laugh. You see, $cientologists take courses and are audited on what they call the 2-D, or relationships. As would-be masters of the universe, there is no reason for their marriages to fail. Ron's tech decrees so. So when things like this happen it's another affirmation that $cientology is a scam and a load of crap.

Cap'n Bob said..."$cientology is way beyond "weird and cultish." I know, I was there. It has destroyed, killed, and bankrupted people. It has ruined family relationships and friendships. It is a money-mad grift posing as a religion."

Really? And what is Islam again? Tell me about Christianity. Now that's a religion about humility, with no significant money involved from parishioners, and hasn't had much to do with wholesale genocide.

Right?

If you're keeping score, I'd say Scientology is towards the back of the line when it comes to destroying lives.

And finally, since evolution isn't a theory, but a scientific fact, all organized religions are grifts. Trying to make one sound better than another is just the ramblings of another sucker.

Wow. You know, this may be the most polarizing comments page i've seen on Ken's blog.Scientifically speaking, D. McEwan, a $5.1 Billion tally for movies in his career is a "scientific" measure. If we're talking "scientific," then good luck shooting holes in that one. Also, if you check IMDB, you'll see his nominations and wins for various awards. While I don't put a whole lot of stock in any of that shit, if we're talking "scientific" in the terms I described, checkmate.Also, anonymous said what I would've said: Scientology is no better or worse than any other belief system. They all have their share of craziness. You're just looking at it through your own beliefs in a skewed fashion. I'm not saying it's my thing, but then again, I don't subscribe to a belief system other than my own.

Sebastian, I'm not sure if I found your irony, but I'll add a few factoids:

1. In the past 100 years, the biggest wars have been created by politicians, not religious leaders. With this in mind, should we ban all politicians?

2. Pol Pot, who managed to kill around two million people in three years, was an atheist. Hey, so was Stalin. Huh, well what do you know. King Jong-il's Dad hated religion so much he had all the churches destroyed and all priests and monks captured and tortured. (A real hard-line atheist!)

3. If you're an atheist, then you believe the "word of God" has been created by Man. If Man created religion, you can't blame it for anyone's actions, because Man decided what those actions would be.

4. Religion is used by people to back-up their existing beliefs. They do not dictate them. A homophobic Christian isn't going to suddenly stop being homophobic because you've proven the Bible to be bunk.

"So wait? The Bible isn't real? Wow! Now I LOVE gays!"

Finally, not only have some of the greatest misdeeds in human history been committed by those who were affirmed atheists, or by those who pretended to be religious (*cough* Hitler *cough*), but the vast majority of those with faith are perfectly reasonable, normal people.

Quite frankly I'm weary of anyone who tries to push their own belief systems on someone else, religious OR atheist. And lately I've gotten so sick of self-righteous atheists that I've considered joining the other team just to annoy them.

(It's weird when you find yourself missing the days of Jehova's Witnesses.)

Our personal beliefs are just that: Personal. Life is difficult enough. If you need faith in something to get you through the day, that's fine by me. (As long as your personal beliefs don't hurt anyone else.)

HourOfLead: Just because something is popular doesn't make it good. One word: Transformers. (But yes, Cruise has given some excellent performances.)

I hold no briefs for atheists, but I don't recall any of them ever burning down black churches, spray-painting swastikas on synagogues, bombing medical facilities and/or gunning down doctors, dragging gay guys into the woods and beating them to death with 2x4s, flying airplanes into buildings, telling women they shouldn't have contraceptives because it violates the religious liberty of a handful of supposedly celibate men, or killing millions of innocent people because they worship the wrong invisible super-being.

And no atheist ever called me a Satanic Jew who's going to burn in Hell for all eternity because I haven't accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior.

So there's no hate crimes or terrorism committed by atheists? Really? Do you fart rainbows, too?

I don't think I've heard a more ill-informed opinion in quite some time. Why don't you take the time before you reply to go look up Nazi-ism, and see for yourself that it's not a religious belief system. Or the fact that the people who crashed planes into the Twin Towers did so because of POLITICAL reasons. Or the fact that women have been subjugated by men for their own selfish reasons, not because of any religious beliefs.

You sound like someone who once watched a Christopher Hitchens video on YouTube and thought he sounded cool.

"Finally, not only have some of the greatest misdeeds in human history been committed by those who were affirmed atheists, or by those who pretended to be religious (*cough* Hitler *cough*)"

Hitler was a Catholic. You can not possibly believe the Holocaust was not religiously motivated. And o f course, the present Pope was one of his Nazis.

Cadavra, speaking as a proud, militant atheist myself, though "Anonymous" just above is full of shit (As the Anonymous ones so often are), the fact is that Stalin committed many an atrocity in the name of wiping out religious delusions. Anytime you try to force thought on anyone, whether it is religious belief or religous non-belief, you'll end up with atrocities.

But the vast majority of atrocites in history were committted by the religious in the name of one make-believe god or another, and that includes all the Nazi atrocities, and of course, 9-11, which was a big case of "My god can lick your god."

"Scientifically speaking, D. McEwan, a $5.1 Billion tally for movies in his career is a 'scientific' measure. If we're talking 'scientific,' then good luck shooting holes in that one."

You're confusing financial success with quality when in fact, they are unrelated. Citizen Kane and Vertigo were box office bombs, yet both are masterpieces. As Cadavra accurately points out, the garbage Transformer movies were gigantic financial successes despite being shot-on-celluloid. Adam Sandler has had some very successful movies. Success and quality are unrelated. And where was your "science" when Tom's Rock of Ages, in which he was well-reviewed even when the film itself was not, died at the bocx office last month?

"Tom does do some good work. As long as he's playing a over-earnest asshole who thinks he's more capable than he is, he's golden.

This means whenever you're casting a dramatic lead for a fighter pilot, anyone significant in the entertainment industry, or noted serial killers, Tom's your man!"

I'll grant you that one. The creepier and more egotistical the role, the better Tom is likely to be.

The 20th century raised slaughter of humans by humans to an industrial level. The slaughter was driven by ideologies that were variously religious, atheist, political, racial, and economic. Hitler may have been born Catholic, but was interested in religion only as means of manipulation of people and seems to have wanted to replace Christianity with Nazi beliefs. We all know what he intended for Judaism. Stalin was a seminary student in his youth before becoming a bank robbing atheist revolutionary and mass murderer rivaling Hitler. Many other examples abound and the 21st century doesn't seem to be improving on humanity's record.

Hitler was not a Catholic. He was raised Catholic and became atheist, and sought, and publicly vowed to destroy the Catholic Church. 3 million Catholics died in the Holocaust, including thousands of priests and nuns, and including Fr. Maximilian Kolbe, who volunteered to die in place of a Jewish man. Pope Benedict was conscripted into the Nazi Youth as all young Germans were. He deserted it, putting his family into hardship. He had a cousin who had Down Syndrome who disappeared under the Nazis and no one saw him again. Please, people, get your facts right. I hate reading false accusations in com boxes. This is so common when it comes to religion. Julie

Amen -- well said-- fair and balanced. Who should really care? Close family and friends and those who will cash in as the dust settles, mainly the lawyers and newspapers set to capitalize on the story. Scientology (and it's cult devotees), is no different than any other religion out there. More people have died in the name of "religion" than any other human-created organization in the history of the world.

Anonymous: As someone who lost most of his family in the Holocaust--my parents escaped just in time--I know plenty about the horrors of the Third Reich. I would also remind you that atheism is the absence of belief in God, not an ipso facto hatred of religion. Most atheists I know take a "live and let live" attitude toward life (not unlike us Jews; I'd never tell someone he'd burn in Hell if he didn't eat a kreplach).

As for flying airplanes into buildings: In the Muslim world, politics are largely driven by religion. (Getting rid of the secular Saddam was ultimately a bonehead move, because he was keeping the religious wackos away from each other.) This is precisely why the separation of church and state is so vital to our maintenance of democracy.

The difference between Scientology and the established religions is that the former grew out of "Dianetics: The Evolution of a Science," a (supposedly) nonfiction article published in 1950 in Astounding Science Fiction by L. Ron Hubbard, a fair-to-mediocre science fiction writer of the 1940s, who had by then converted the magazine's editor John W. Campbell Jr. An entertaining story by Alfred Bester about Campbell and Dianetics can be found at the blog of Frederik Pohl, the noted SF author and 92-year-old blogger (www.thewaythefutureblogs.com/2011/04/me-and-alfie-part-6-john-w-campbell-dianetics).

"Anonymous said...Hitler was not a Catholic. He was raised Catholic and became atheist, and sought, and publicly vowed to destroy the Catholic Church."

Yes, yes, Anonymous. You keep telling yourself that lie, just like the Nazi Pope wants you to. Obviously a person who doesn't even know how to type his or her own name is an authority of Hitler's religion. For the record: Hitler was Catholic. And yes, the Pope deserted - in 1945 when they were losing the war and the cowardly piece of shit was afraid of ending up tried for his war crimes. Means nothing. He was a Nazi, and his extre,me-right-wing politcs-of-hate ever since show he still is a Nazi at heart.

Albert Speer wrote that, although Hitler was "officially" Catholic, "he had no real attachment to it".

Hitler himself wrote in "Mein Kampf", "in the Jew I still saw only a man who was of a different religion, and therefore, on grounds of human tolerance, I was against the idea that he should be attacked because he had a different faith".

Even Derek Hastings, author of "Catholicism and the Roots of Nazism" concluded that "there is little doubt that Hitler was a staunch opponent of Christianity throughout the duration of the Third Reich".

That's three highly reputable sources, one of them primary, indicating that your statements are incorrect.

You just cited Mein Kampf as a "highly reputable source". That alone invalidates any blather you write. That your other sources are a Catholic Nazi-denier and Albert Speer reduces your posting to rubbish.

D. McEwan, I realize that in order to maintain your rep as the resident snarky asshole poster on this blog (and every blog has one just like you), you have to constantly and theatrically overreact to anything you disagree with. However, just to be clear, Mein Kampf IS a reputable source, if the information that you're seeking is information about Adolph Hitler's worldview. It's reputable because Adolph Hitler wrote it. Whether you agree or disagree with its contents is totally irrelevant to its reputation and credibility as a source of information as to how Hitler thought about a given subject. Your attempt to somehow equate Booster's use of Mein Kampf as a source to the idea that he endorses its message is yet another example of your typical "so, have you stopped beating your wife" style of argument. I don't know if Booster "found a lot of truth" in Mein Kampf, as you tried to insinuate; I do know that if he was looking for the opinions and thoughts of Adolph Hitler, that it's certainly a good place to look. And no, I don't believe in the message of Mein Kampf, though I'm sure that won't dissuade you from suggesting it.

I guess what is so so sad is one would think a guy like Tom would have the ability of insight and wisdom to see that L. Hubbard gang for what they are...Greedy Vampires, CONTROL FREAK ILLUMINATI!!. Hollywood must be a real insecure & lonely place for the rich/Famous to need to find spiritual identity in cult fictions. I know Tom will hurt BAD over losing Katie cause men have that fear of growing old and desire youth in their women. Then they play the role of bossy DAD (like females can't see you're trip is Jealousy & LEAVE YOU). Then again, I read the Illum's like (L.Ron....look it up)want control over the movie star and music idols and to manipulate them for money and influence they have on the masses, and force them to follow the demands & covenants of the church and recruit RECRIUT ! ! ! Once your in you're stuck. Think not? your wrong after they ask nice, and move on past the guilt trip, they call for back up... Still not doing what's expected?... then is when you realize you're not just stuck in this life but your debt passes on and on for many many lives (Hub preaches). Maybe Tom realizes that and he is stuck in mud up to his ears and the stress from THAT has to take a toll. Tom better watch his back cause if they can't make you disappear they will harm your reputation... Michael...molester, Preacher Man ...Homo, President...horny toad...Nixon...Corrupt!!! it goes on & on. I think Katie is so beautiful and too much so to look as haggard as this time is making for her & both of them. I just hope that little miss is shielded from the ugly as long as possible. I pray Tom sees his way to doing a mission impossible and bounce up outta that Scientology crap. Best wishes to them. Sorry but someone has to tell it closer to like it is than not to...Thank you

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Named one of the BEST 25 BLOGS OF 2011 by TIME Magazine. Ken Levine is an Emmy winning writer/director/producer/major league baseball announcer. In a career that has spanned over 30 years Ken has worked on MASH, CHEERS, FRASIER, THE SIMPSONS, WINGS, EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND, BECKER, DHARMA & GREG, and has co-created his own series including ALMOST PERFECT starring Nancy Travis. He and his partner wrote the feature VOLUNTEERS. Ken has also been the radio/TV play-by-play voice of the Baltimore Orioles, Seattle Mariners, San Diego Padres. and has hosted Dodger Talk on the Dodger Radio Network.

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